


Darling, You're On My Mind 24/7

by Re0rient



Series: Life Ain't a Fairytale [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:43:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Re0rient/pseuds/Re0rient
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Go to work, get wasted, go home. Repeat until death occurs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darling, You're On My Mind 24/7

24/7.  That’s how often she’s on his mind.  And how much time does he get to spend with her?

0/0.  Zero hours a day, zero days a week.  Because he screwed up.

Graham sits at a bar on the other side of town drowning his sorrows in Scotch and vodka, seething--passively grumbling about how unfair life is.  It’s not like he asked to care about Ruby.  It’s not like he asked Regina to make him keep an eye on her.  It’s not like he asked to be born with the capacity to lie.

  
Then again, there’s a ton of shit he didn’t ask for in life, but shit still finds its way toward him and hits him like a ton of bricks.

He asks for another shot of vodka.  The bartender--whose name escapes him, he only comes here _every day_ \--slides one over and Graham gulps it down.  It burns as it washes down his throat.  He smirks.  He’s not so drunk he can’t see the irony.  He used to tell her that alcohol was no way to solve her problems.  

It still isn’t.  But it makes forgetting easy.

Except when he’s around Regina.  Which, unfortunately, is _a lot._   Occupational hazard. 

Being around Regina reminds him of Ruby in more ways than he’d care to admit.  Both so angry, so desperate, so _beautiful_ , all dark, glossy hair and crimson lips and pale skin and tongues as sharp as spears.  He thinks of Ruby, the last time they spoke-- _get out, she spat_ \--and Regina, only hours before-- _what the hell are you still doing here_.He sees how similar they are, how Regina _is_ Ruby, gone wrong.  Perhaps that’s why she asked him to keep an eye on Ruby to begin with.

It worries him, how Ruby could become _her_ , but his will to stop it from happening is tempered by his fear of failure and his primal instinct to sprint in the opposite direction, to be far, far away from it all if it does happen.  Because Ruby has seen Regina, and Ruby can play smarter, can be Regina better than Regina can.  

The bartender slips him another shot.

The alcohol burns away Regina’s poison, the sweet, rotten taste fresh on his tongue.  A faceless girl sits down next to him and orders an apple martini; he slides three stools over.  He’s lost his taste for apples.  

He’s seen Ruby around town, of course, seen her bare her pearly whites and laugh at jokes that aren’t funny, seen her turn on her heel and toss her silky, red-streaked locks.  She knows how she tempts men that aren’t good for her, how their ravenous eyes travel over her like she’s something to eat.  She knows that Graham is watching with his dark, fiery eyes and that he fumes with jealousy.

The men aren’t good for her, she’s not good for the men.  She’s not good for Graham, either.  

Scratch that: he and her are not good for each other, and he’s okay with that.

He’s seen the red vintage convertible speed past his house in the dead of night, toward the town border, toward freedom.

He’s also seen her slow as she passes his place on the way back, but she moves on, always moves on.  He wonders who she’ll be with on those nights.

Granny visited him at the office earlier today, bursting in with the agility of a woman much younger than she.  Up close, he’d noticed shadows of fatigue under her eyes.  She’d been fighting with Ruby again.

“I didn’t approve of your rela--whatever with my granddaughter.  I still don’t. I don’t need the Mayor in our hair.  But whatever’s happened between you two, you better fix it before she ends up dead in a gutter.”

The Lucas family females are clearly very bad at extending olive branches.  “She hates me,” he countered.

“She hates _everyone_ but you,” the older woman corrects.  “That’s why she’s so angry.  Because she’s been hurt by someone who she cares about.”

“Fix it!” and then she hobbles out the door as fast as she came, leaving a stunned sheriff at his desk.  

Graham raises two fingers for another shot, but the bartender refuses.  He’s just about to pull out the badge, play the ‘do what I want or I’ll arrest you’ card when--

“Listen, buddy, whatever girl you’re pining for, go get her.  I don’t want to see you here again tomorrow.”

He’s confused when the surly bouncers drag him out of the bar and toss him out into the bitter cold, but he stumbles off in what he hopes is the general direction of his house, and arrives at the same intersection he ends up at every night, the same one he tells himself he’ll avoid next time but never does.

Turn right, go home, vomit, collapse into bed, wake up with wicked hangover.  Shower.  Go to work.  Go to bar.  Repeat.

Go straight, open the diner door.  She’ll be in there, maybe with someone, maybe not; maybe she’ll be drunk like him.  What happens next?

Maybe it’s time to find out.  There’ll be no repeating.  He flips a coin and it rolls into a sewer.

Straight it is, then.


End file.
